Machine-to-machine communications, also referred to as M2M communications or machine-type communications (MTC) is increasing in usage and is expected to further increase in popularity. The applicability of MTC includes a variety of applications including smart grid, home networking, connected health care, vehicular networking including driverless cars, and so forth. To that end, METIS is evaluating massive machine communications (MMC), and is including MTC as part of the future of cellular systems, such as 5G systems and beyond.